Bananas are considered a kitchen staple in many households, but sometimes, depending on the way they’re stored they can begin to brown quickly.
Luckily, there’s an easy trick that makes them last longer, so that you can eat them fresh rather than having to turn them into banana bread (although this might be a tempting option).
Simply wrap the stem ends of each banana with plastic wrap or aluminium foil to reduce the release of ethylene gas.
Devanshi Shah, the short-form content creator of Dee’s Kitchen, told Newsweek: “Usually the banana starts to ripen when the head of the banana bunch is exposed to more moisture in the air.
“By tightly wrapping the head of the bunch, the bananas will last longer.”
As a general piece of advice for all produce, she pointed out: “Make sure to store your veggies and fruit separately in your fridge.”
It also turns out that bananas should be lasting weeks without spoiling and that most people are storing them the wrong way as they should never be stored in a fruit bowl.
The stems of bananas produce a plant growth hormone called ethylene gas, which helps the fruit go from hard green bananas to tender and sweet yellow bananas ready to eat, but this gas also causes them to begin ripening quickly.
However, Brenda Anderson, a farmer, cook and founder of Little Lost Creations, has shared that to prevent this happening, you should store ripe bananas in the fridge as this is the best way to keep the fruit fresh.
Brenda said: “Then a friend of mine told me something she had tried. I thought it sounded a little crazy, but I thought I would give it a try. She said to put the bananas in a brown paper grocery bag closed tightly, and put them in the crisper in the refrigerator. She said the peel would go black but the banana would taste good.”
It is a common misconception that bananas should never be stored in the fridge at all as it causes the peel to go black due to the cold temperature, which most people mistake for the banana spoiling.
However, if a yellow banana is kept in the fridge it will halt the ripening process and the fruit inside the peel will remain fresh and good to eat for weeks after being bought.
Brenda said: “After two and a half weeks in the crisper in the refrigerator I took my bananas out to try them. I really wanted to put this method to the test.
“The peelings don’t look like the banana is going to taste good but when I peeled the banana it had not gone mushy like I thought it would. It was still firm and tasted just a little riper than when I put them in the brown paper sack.”
